Monthly Archives: April 2015

After what seemed like an eternity, we arrived in Santiago. It took some time to park in the bus terminal since it was rush hour. But the end was near. I was about to embark on my next adventure. And adventure it would be.

I was lacking crucial information and I would be getting off the bus in just a few minutes.

My Lonely Planet told me that there were 4 bus terminals in Santiago.

That said, what I don’t know:

Which of the 4 bus terminals we are arriving into.

Which station has the bus I need to take to Vina.

If the bus I need has available seats.

What I need to do (in no particular order):

Must go to the bathroom.

Need to find a left luggage place. I don’t want to bring my stuff into a bus station bathroom since I can only imagine the floor is probably disgusting. It’s going to be hot and crowded and I’m going to want to drop my bags and run to the bathroom as quickly as possible.

It started out simple. I even noted that I “revised thoughts on long haul buses. This is not Greyhound. And better than coach on an airplane.”

After all, we had meal service. I was served food…twice.

First, a sandwich which tasted better than it looked.

And a special guest. A guy with a butcher’s coat and sunglasses jumped aboard to sell empanadas and would ride with us for a few miles before hopping off. In case you are wondering, the bus smelled delicious but I passed on the opportunity to purchase the empanadas, wherever they may have come from.

I even noted that it felt somewhat safe because cops would randomly come aboard, walk the aisles and leave.

I admired the scenery, with switchbacks sans guardrails, homes in the middle of nowhere and the vegetation once we decreased our elevation.

I was playing around with the exchange rate so I had an idea of what $10USD and $20USD would equal in Chilean pesos. At the time I was traveling 9500CHP equaled $20.55USD. I noted that “it makes me nervous with so many zeros.”

I wrote some words I learned “palta = avocado,” aceitunas = olives” and “para llevar = to go”

I made notes about my fellow passengers. I came up with stories on why they were traveling and where they were headed.

“Flowing chocolate milk…with rocks.” Apt description of the fast-moving brown river, considering the other notes I made, that include: “rafts, going in that water???” “lots of rocks” and “where’s the nearest hospital?” (perhaps I was foreshadowing for what was to come).

Then, another meal service later, with an assortment of crackers, cake, marmalade, teas, coffees, instant milk and a variety of sugars. I don’t drink coffee but I finished everything else off….once my bus neighbors finished yet another diaper change (and their aversion to throwing the dirty diaper in the trash, instead tucking it into their diaper bag). At the same time, their second child was having a meltdown, throwing a bottle of milk. The image and stench of the bus bathroom memory was still worse than then smell of countless diaper changes and spilled sour milk just a few feet away.

And then my ride went from tolerable, to painful…

In reality, looking at these 28 pages of notes, forget my timeline of activities I could do to while away my travel time. Instead, I spent the bulk of the time on the bus detailing my misery in chicken scratch.

A movie with English-language voiceover couldn’t entertain me. The words didn’t match their mouths and I started to unravel. This was the beginning of the end, though this hiccup would be the least of my issues as I became increasingly more cranky on this seemingly never-ending ride to Santiago.

I have notes like “This bus ride is making me nauseous.”

“How gross?” I questioned in advance of checking out the bathroom situation after a few hours. “AWFUL,” I responded, noting my attempt, but instead choosing to hold it.

(I assume this was directed towards the baby) “This ride is awful. And guess what, I want to scream and cry too.” “Super crankified.”

I also had jotted down “Cute kid. Not so cute anymore. Throwing food. Sister is crying. I’m cranky too.”

Using the logic from the time that had elapsed, the Lonely Planet and whatever signage appeared on the roads, I was creating crazy math equations and sketches, passing a good chunk of time. I was definitely getting frustrated because my answers were “No idea how much time is left” and also, the much more colorful, “No F idea.”

My misery crossed language barriers and was documented in my notebook in both Spanish and English.

To top off my bus misery was the added uncertainty of my arrival in Santiago.

Rafael was 100% right. The scenery on the bus route was stunning. From Mendoza to the border, there were snow-capped mountains on one side of the bus and desert on the other. Views on either side were incredible.

I knew that the bus would make no stops, other than at the border, from Mendoza to Santiago. I didn’t know how much farther we had left but I just couldn’t wait to get off this bus, even if it would be just a quick stop. Quick…ha.

We slowly approached the border station at Paso Los Libertadores, a well-traveled crossing, in both directions, linking Mendoza and Santiago.

I snapped some photos around me as we were waiting, and waiting, and waiting, to pull into the crossing.

Unfortunately, the wait to get off the bus took an extraordinary long time. More so, because I wanted to get off the damn bus and probably even more so because I had to go to the bathroom pretty badly since I refused to go on the bus.

Even more unfortunate, is that the border stop took just shy of 3 hours from the rolling stop to the bus moving again.

THREE HOURS. THREE. HOURS.

What I didn’t understand was the process. There were many lines we had to enter and I’m sure each served a purpose but it just took so. very. very. long.

The bus first had to go through a line because we were departing Argentina. Then the bus went through another line because we were arriving into Chile (um, duh). Next, get off the bus and wait outside, on the Argentina side, for the dogs to sniff the bus. Once complete, enter the next line inside the building.

Once inside the building, everyone on the bus lined up, like it was a police station line up, with our driver and his co-pilot leading the way. There were tables in front of each of the two lines. Bags went on a conveyor belt. Once the bags from under the bus were through, everyone on the bus had to put their day packs through.

Somewhere in this long line, we waited in line to get passports stamped and probably go through customs. At some point, I was able to get to the bathroom. I walked into a bathroom that had at least an inch of water on the floor from wall to wall. I had to go so badly that I didn’t even care. I just told myself that the sink must have overflowed to avoid thinking about the toilets overflowing with something much worse than water.

Waiting, waiting and more waiting.

Once we had all gone through the line, the bus driver got the okay and motioned everyone to collect their stuff and get back onto the bus.

Once we were back on the bus, the scenery changed slightly after passing through the border and as we headed down the mountains.

Switchbacks ahead!

By far, of my bus photography, this photo (below) is my absolute favorite. Much of the ride down the Andes on the Chilean side was on roads, with views, like this.

I wasn’t sure if the 3-hour border stop was included in the 6 to 8 hours so I was hopeful that Santiago would be close as we came down the mountain.

It didn’t bode well for a short leg. Soon after we got going, the ‘co-pilot’ put another movie on.

The ride to the border, la frontera, was long but I occupied a good chunk of time taking photographs out of the bus window.

I thought that the scenery was very similar to North America’s southwest.

Look closely at the below photo. A river.

Mountains and cactus and desert.

And more mountains and desert.

Some greenery.

And of course, snow on the mountaintops. We were traveling through the Andes and so one of these peaks in the distance could be Aconcagua, the highest mountain in the world after Mount Everest. But unfortunately, I cannot confirm which one.

Some more interesting views out of the bus window before I started to get restless.

Rafael and Gustavo assured me that I would be well-fed (sandwich, hot meal, chips and a drink) on the bus ride from Mendoza to Santiago.

However, this would be a long day of travel (I just didn’t realize how long) and I wanted to make sure I had my own snack back up plan. I was warned by several travelers and the woman who sold me my bus ticket, not to pack any fruit or anything with seeds for this ride because it would be confiscated at the border checkpoint and hold up the whole bus through customs.

My backup plan for, what I was told would be, a 6 to 8 hour bus ride depending on the border situation, consisted of a bag of ham-flavored potato chips, both pizza AND cheese-flavored crackers, a Sprite and two juice boxes. Please don’t judge.

I had never crossed a border by bus before. Plane? Check. Ferry? Check. Car? Check. By foot? Check (later in my trip).

The idea of crossing a border by bus excited me, probably way more than it should have. I didn’t know what to expect other than…

The actual time at the border could be long,

The bathroom situation on the bus wouldn’t be ideal and, what got me on the bus in the first place,

This was a ride to be done during the day because the scenery was not to be missed.

Turns out, all true.

When Rafael took me to purchase bus tickets, he had reserved me a single seat upstairs, and not in the front row, because he said the cross wind from the Andes paired with the windy roads could make someone very ill. My seat was terrific except for the young family in the two-seater across the aisle that, what seemed like every 10 minutes, used the tray tables as changing tables for their baby, who had frequent bowel movements.

Knowing what I know now about bus travel, it wasn’t a bad situation at all.